Quebec judge OKs tax on cocaine revenue

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QMI Agency

Nov 17, 2012

, Last Updated: 4:28 PM ET

MONTREAL -- Even though a judge said it seemed "absurd," he nonetheless allowed the provincial government to tax a notorious cocaine trafficker's drug revenues.

Quebec Court Judge Antonio De Michele ruled last week that the province's tax authority may collect over $1 million from Vincenzo Armeni, 55, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2007 for drug trafficking.

Armeni had taken Revenue Quebec to court arguing that the tax agency erroneously based its calculations on how much he owed on "claims of an informant" who collaborated with police against Armeni.

Judge De Michele threw out Armeni's argument.

"Of course it would have been a lot simpler ... if (Armeni) had kept accurate balance sheets of his commercial activities," the judge wrote in his ruling. "But we don't have receipts to establish the details of the sale, neither do we have a bill that could precise the real costs of the product."

De Michele ruled that Quebec law permits the government to collect tax on revenues derived from illegal activities "even if ... it could seem absurd."

In 2005, provincial police found 240 kg of cocaine in the home of an Armeni associate. The drugs represented 10% of the total cocaine seized by police in Canada that year. Provincial police estimated the drugs had a street value of at least $16 million.

The seizure led then-Superior Court Justice Richard Wagner - who was recently named to the Supreme Court of Canada - to sentence Armeni to 19 years in prison. Armeni has no chance at parole before serving half his sentence.

He has three previous drug trafficking convictions dating back to 1980 as well as a conviction in 1986 for conspiracy and possession of a prohibited weapon.